No federally sponsored research or development, and no sequence listing, table, or computer program listing compact disc appendix is applicable to this application.
The present disclosure relates to the field of television advertising. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a system and method of providing commercial information and purchase opportunities to a viewer of a television program, the commercial information and purchase opportunities relating to products and services displayed in the television program.
Traditional commercial advertising on television consists of a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization, which conveys a message, typically to market a product or service. Modernly, commercial advertising may be embedded within the content of a television program, for example, through product placement. Successful product placement requires that the product be easily identified (e.g., by brand name) and remembered by the viewer.
However, viewers may be interested in purchasing products or services seen in a television program which are not easily identified from the context of the program. For example, viewers may be interested in purchasing articles of clothing worn by the actors in a television show. Viewers may also be interested in booking travel accommodations for locations seen in a television show.
Unfortunately, there does not exist a method by which television viewers may instantly access commercial information relating to products, services, and places seen in a television program. There also does not exist a method by which viewers can purchase the products or book travel accommodations to the places using the same conduit of instant access by which they have received the commercial information.
It is well known that a sales opportunity should be presented to a potential buyer at the moment that the buyer's interest is piqued. Otherwise, the sales opportunity may be lost forever. Presently, a television viewer interested in purchasing a product displayed during a television program must personally conduct a search for the product, for example, on the internet. Such a search is likely to be time-consuming and ultimately fruitless, since the viewer most likely does not have any information about the product other than general appearance. Furthermore, to conduct the search, the viewer must choose to either divert his attention away from the television program, or wait until after the program, at which point the viewer may have entirely forgotten about the desired purchase.
The method of this disclosure overcomes the above problems and has further advantages as described in the following detailed description and related drawing figures.